11/1: Miceli Dealt, Ben Picked, Robby ROTY, Pops & Arriba AS's, Roberto, Maz & Alley - GG's, '20 Moves; HBD Eddie, Gary, Miguel, Howie, Larry, Clarence, Earl, Ham & Mike
- 1872 – C Mike Hopkins was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He’s one of only eight native Scotsmen to play MLB, and for him it was just for one game. His family crossed the pond and took up residence in Chartiers (now Carnegie); his dad was a miner and Mike became a railroader. He also played semi-pro ball for Chartiers and his neighbor, Honus Wagner, talked the team into taking him on a road trip in 1902, a year when the Pirates were waltzing away with the pennant. He got into a blowout game at Cincinnati’s Palace of the Fans and went 2-for-2. That was his career; he was married with a child on the way and had a regular day job, so a baseball gig didn’t ring his bell. Mike worked on the RR into the 1940s, played a little sandlot ball, and raised nine children who gave him and the missus 18 grandchildren and two great-grandkids before he passed away at the age of 79.
- 1884 – PH Robert Hamilton “Ham” Hyatt was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina. Nominally a 1B/OF but used mainly as a pinch-hitter, Hyatt played for the Bucs from 1910-11, went to the minors for a season and returned from 1912-14, hitting .267 for Pittsburgh. Ham spent a couple of more years in the show and finished off his career with a PCL stint.
- 1892 – C Earl Blackburn was born in Leesville, Ohio. Earl played for parts of five big league seasons, batting .262, but you can be excused if you missed him in Pittsburgh. He played one game as a 19-year old in 1912, but never made it to bat before moving on to the Cincinnati Reds, Boston Braves and Chicago Cubs. Blackburn then put in one more season with Kansas City in the American Association before spending 1920 with Bethlehem of the Bethlehem Steel League, an industrial league that raided MLB players, before his horsehide trail turns cold.
- 1894 – RF Clarence Berger was born in East Cleveland, Ohio. His MLB resume consists of six games for the 1914 Pirates with a 1-for-13 batting line after a late September call up from the Richmond Colts, from which the Bucs had bought Berger’s contract for $2,500. He was released the following year before camp broke, played the season in the minors and got on with his life’s work.
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| Larry French – 1934 Goudey |
- 1907 – LHP Larry French was born in Visalia, California. He started his 14-year career in Pittsburgh (1929-34) and had a line of 87-83-9/3.50, winning 15 or more games four times with the Pirates. French won 197 games before he hung ‘em up and was an All-Star for the Cubs in 1940. He’s still noted for his 1933 “Soap Game.” With the Bucs up 8-0 in the ninth, French ducked out of the bullpen to get to the hot water first. But the pesky Boston Braves tied the game, and French was summoned to the mound with soap still dripping down his face. It didn’t hurt his performance; he tossed 1-2/3 squeaky-clean innings and got the win in 10 frames.
- 1934 – OF Howie Goss was born in Wewoka, Oklahoma. Howie spent nine years in the minors before the Bucs called him up in 1962 after he put together a .299/27/100 slash line in the PCL. In 89 games (25 starts) Goss hit .243. As the 1963 camp broke, Goss was traded to the Colt .45s for OF Manny Mota. Goss became Houston’s regular CF’er, but hit only .209 in what was his last MLB year. Manny spent six seasons as a Pirate with a .297 BA and went on to become an all-time great as a pinch hitter with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
- 1945 – OF/3B Ben Guintini was the Pirates selection in the Rule 5 draft. He had hit .283 for the San Francisco Seals in the PCL, but went 0-for-3 as a Buc in 1946 and returned to the Seals, closing out his MLB career with three more games with Philadelphia in 1949, never managing to collect a big league hit. Ben did have a long career in the minors, playing 1,000+ games and once hitting 32 homers. He became a Cadillac salesman after he retired.
- 1948 – The Pirates hosted the annual farm directors conference at the Hotel Schenley in Oakland, across the street from Forbes Field. Apparently there wasn’t much on the minor league agenda; the meeting lasted just one day with an evening banquet following. The Pittsburgh hosts were Pirates GM Roy Hamey, Farm Director Ray Kennedy and Assistant Director Fred Hering.
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| Miguel Dilone – 1977 Topps |
- 1954 – OF Miguel Dilone was born in Santiago, Dominican Republic. He played parts of five seasons for Pittsburgh, from 1974-77 and again in 1983, but mustered just 75 PA and a .145 BA over that span and was utilized primarily as a pinch runner, finishing with 23 swipes as a Bucco and 267 lifetime steals. Dilone carved out a 12-year MLB career and had a .265 lifetime BA while playing for seven teams. The speedster was known in the Dominican as the “Saeta Cibaeña” (the Cibao Dart; Cibao is the region where Santiago is located) because of his baserunning chops. He lost an eye in 2009 to a foul ball while he was on the field, distracted while helping coach young players.
- 1956 – 1B/OF Gary Redus was born in Tanner, Alabama. He was a minor league phenom who hit .462 while playing 68 games for the Pioneer League Billings Mustangs’ in 1978, setting a record for pro baseball that still stands, across all levels and all leagues. Redus played off the bench as a platoon bat for five years (1988-92) and was on three division-winning teams as a Pirate, hitting .255 in 398 Buc games. His biggest day as a Buc was on August 25th, 1989 when he hit for the cycle in a 12–3 victory over the Reds. Redus retired from playing in 1994, coached baseball for six years at Calhoun Community College in Tanner, Alabama, and was an outfield instructor for Pittsburgh and Houston before retiring for good.
- 1964 – 1B Eddie Williams was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. Williams had put in eight MLB years (and another in Japan) playing baseball’s corners when the Pirates added him to their bench at the 1997 deadline, where the 1983 first-rounder (4th overall) hit .247. He got a cup of coffee with San Diego after that and finished his career in Mexico, Korea and the indie leagues.
- 1967 – 2B Bill Mazeroski, RF Roberto Clemente and SS Gene Alley were named to The Sporting News 1967 NL Gold Glove Team. It was Maz’s eighth GG, Roberto’s seventh and Alley’s second. It would be the last one for the infielders while Clemente still had four more to collect.
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| Roberto Clemente – 2022 graphic/MLB |
- 1972 – Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente were selected as members of The Sporting News NL All Star team, as selected by the players. Another honor was bestowed on the Bucs when club president Dan Galbreath was selected as the Variety Club’s Sportsman of the Year and was recognized with other awardees at the VC’s annual dinner on November 26th. Dan’s family owned both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Darby Dan stables and produced champions from both.
- 1978 – RHP Don Robinson was announced as The Sporting News’ Rookie Pitcher of the Year. Used almost solely as a starter, he put together a 14-6/3.47 line and came in third in the NL Rookie of the Year poll as well as finishing among the Top Ten vote getters for the Cy Young Award. Robby finished strong, going 9-1 in 13 starts from August onward with five complete games.
- 1996 – The Pirates traded RHP Dan Miceli to the Detroit Tigers for RHP Clint Sodowsky. Miceli started out as Pirate and in four years went 8-15-24/5.41. The Bucs gave him nine starts in ‘96 (his only year that he was used as a starter), and he spent the rest of his 14-year career primarily as a set-up guy. Sodowsky went 2-2/3.62 (his FIP was 4.67 and WHIP 1.6) in his only Bucco campaign and he was out of the bigs after tossing three games in 1999 for the Cards.
- 2020 – After making a boatload of player moves two days before, the Bucs finalized their 40-man roster by removing CF Anthony Alford, RHP Jameson Taillon, IF Phil Evans, RHP Michael Feliz and RHP Clay Holmes from the IL and protecting them on the roster. They had to jettison a couple of more guys to clear space: The Pirates turned down RHP Chris Archer’s $11M option for 2021, making him a FA, RHP Nick Burdi was removed from the IL and DFA’ed after he had his second Tommy John surgery in mid-October while RHP Dovy Neverauskas was waived.
Source: https://oldbucs.blogspot.com/2024/11/111-miceli-dealt-ben-picked-robby-roty.html
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